Early spring in the Derwent Walk Country Park, Gateshead

 Some pictures from a walk last week in the Derwent Walk Country Park, Winlaton Mill, Gateshead.

Silver birches and willows, seen from the top of the Nine Arches railway viaduct over the river Derwent. The buds of the birches take on a purplish hue at this time of year, as they begin to swell, while the willows have an orange tint.

Carrion crow. Handsome birds, with a hint of blue iridescence in their plumage.

A fine display of colt'sfoot

Dutch rush Equisetum hyemale spore cones beginning to disperse spores. An uncommon plant, but there are some fine patches of it beside the footpath.

Golden saxifrage in full flower in a ditch beside the old railway line.

A heron with some fine chest plumes, feeding in the river Derwent.

Beard lichen Usnea sp. Remarkable that this pollution-sensitive species is now established here, when you consider that this was formerly a location for coal mines, an ironworks and the Derwenthaugh coking plant that only closed down in 1986.

A magpie in one of the meadows

Primroses in flower

A soaring red kite

Toads coming out of hibernation in the woodland, heading for Clockburn lake, on the site of the old coking plant

Wood anemones in flower in woodland beside the river Derwent

Eggleston Burn

Today's Guardian Country Diary describes a visit to the steep-sided valley cut by Eggleston Burn in Teesdale, as it flows down into the river Tees at Eggleston. Confusingly, there is an Eggleston and an Egglestone in Teesdale, upstream and downstream of Barnard Castle respectively, and this is the view along Eggleston Burn from the old stone bridge that carries a road across it, just north of Eggleston village. You can see the shadow of the photographer about two thirds of the way up the right-hand side of the picture, where the shadow of the bridge cuts across!

The footpath down to the beck is reached by this very narrow stile in the bridge parapet. The path through the woods from here is treacherous in places, with a long, steep drop into the burn on one side....

.... and you can hear the sound of fast-flowing water growing louder as you descend.

At the bottom lies this very sheltered little valley, where sunlight onto penetrates right down to the bottom for about an hour in the middle of the day at this time of year.

You can follow the footpath for about a quarter of a mile before it turns away from the burn and climbs back up through pastures and only the moorland.  




The valley is sheltered from prevailing south-westerly winds and the burn keeps the humidity high all year-round. This provides ideal conditions for growth of mosses and lichens on the ancient hawthorns and blackthorns on the burn-side ........

....... and on the lower slopes of  the pastures above.

This bushy lichen is, I think, a species of Usnea - possibly U. subfloridiana..

.... and I think this may be Evernia prunastri..

So far the redwings and fieldfares haven't got to the hawthorn berries....

...... or the sloes, which have softened and split after last week's frosts. The combination of grey lichens, scarlet berries and blue-black sloes provides festive decorations for bare twigs in the depths of winter.